A new series starts with repairs from the previous one. First, K9 and his magnificent brain need a tune-up, but after he (somehow) contracts a form of laryngitis, he’ll have to sit this one out. Second, Romana thinks she also needs a tune-up, so she regenerates into Princess Astra. She cycles through several forms before deciding on the Astra in a pink version of the Doctor’s costume.

For all the drama in fan circles about Romana’s regeneration, it made sense to me. Since the Tenth Doctor was able to rebuild his missing hand within fifteen hours of regeneration, why shouldn’t Romana be able to adjust her form within the same period? The bigger question I now have: Since Time Lords can apparently make these adjustments and perfect their changes, why does the Doctor rely on a cosmic lottery each time?

Back to the story, the TARDIS is still traveling under the influence of the randomizer. They arrive on a planet with a lot of seismic activity and strong radioactivity, and as they explore, the Time Lords find a lot of concrete debris and a mechanical shaking of the ground. They encounter a group of natives who are observing a funeral. After they leave, the Doctor inspects the corpse and discovers that it was a combat pilot from the planet Kantra. The odd thing is that they are not currently on Kantra.

They pursue a landing spacecraft – “It’s not a flying saucer” is funny given the serial’s villain – and after it lands, it drills into the surface before the hatch opens. As the Time Lords move in to investigate, the ship’s unseen occupants open fire, forcing the Doctor and Romana into the ruins. An explosion rocks the building, trapping the Doctor under rubble. Since Romana cannot move the debris, she sets off to find K9 so he can help. When she arrives, a new series of explosions buries the TARDIS, preventing her from entering. K9 cannot blast out of the debris since the Doctor failed to reinstall his brain, so Romana heads back to the Doctor. She doesn’t see a mysterious figure pursuing her, and when she gets back, the Doctor is gone. Romana’s pursuer startles her and she falls down a nearby shaft while trying to escape.

The Doctor was rescued by the crew of the spacecraft – the Movellans – and they inform him that they are on the planet D5GZA, better known as Skaro. Well, that got the Doctor’s attention. The Movellans are on Skaro to wage war against the Daleks.

When Romana wakes up, she explores the area and encounters several Daleks. Meanwhile, her pursuer has rigged a rope to come rescue her and ends up watching as Romana is taken captive. Does Romana know who the Daleks are? She is very afraid of them, but apparently does not know anything about them based on their interrogation of her. The Daleks assign Romana to a labor camp.

The man who was pursuing Romana, starship engineer Tyssan, arrives at the Movellan ship and declares himself as a human prisoner of the Daleks. After he explains what he was working on and reveals Romana’s fate, the Doctor decides to go after her. The Movellans and Tyssan join him.

Working with her labor group, Romana learns about her captors and their goals. If anyone attempts to escape, the Daleks kill the entire group as a deterrent to other groups staging escape attempts. As the radiation poisoning catches up to her, Romana collapses and her fellow workers remove her body from the site.

The Daleks discover the Doctor’s intrusion and move to intercept his group. They are able to evade the patrols and end up in the control room. The Doctor recognizes a map of the old Kaled city, and tries to reason out what the Daleks are after. The patrols find and exterminate one of the Movellan sentries before discovering the Doctor’s team. The group escapes, pursued by the Daleks, and are able to climb back up the shaft. The Doctor taunts them – “If you’re supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don’t you try climbing after us?” – before leaving. Moments later, he finds an empty grave and a healthy Romana: The Time Lady feigned death by stopping her hearts to escape the Dalek camp.

The Doctor returns to the Dalek headquarters though the back door based on his knowledge of the city. He finds the object that the Daleks are hunting for: Davros. The Dalek creator is in a comatose state after his last encounter with the Doctor, but he begins to wake up as another tremor buries a Movellan in debris. The Doctor examines the body – he was earlier told that it was against the Movellan custom to allow an alien to look upon their death – and proclaims that he was right. About what exactly? That revelation is saved for the back half of the story.

Davros wheels out of his tomb to find the Doctor, who then takes him to a blocked off room for a discussion. Meanwhile, the Daleks have finally broken through to the third level, find the empty tomb, and track the Doctor’s tracks. As they leave the area, the Movellan corpse awakens. There’s a lot of that happening in the Kaled underground these days.

As the group blocks off the room, the Doctor sends Romana and Tyssan out through a window so they can return to the Movellan spaceship. The ensuing discussion is the typical back and forth between the Doctor and the embodiment of the Dalek psyche. As they talk and the Doctor plots, the Daleks discover them and blast into the room. The Doctor threatens Davros with a homemade explosive, forcing the Daleks to back off and setting up a standoff. The Daleks up the stakes by exterminating prisoners until the Doctor surrenders, but Davros recognizes that the Doctor is not bluffing. The workers are released and the Doctor escapes, setting the explosive to remote detonation. The resulting explosion misses Davros but takes out a Dalek.

Romana makes it back to the Movellan spaceship – Tyssan was separated from her to assure her survival – and discovers that the previously dead have returned to life. They stun her, then set to work on something they call the Nova Device, a weapon that will incinerate the atmosphere and destroy the planet.

Tyssan meets up with the Doctor, and they meet up with a Dalek. They are rescued by a Movellan, but the Doctor pulls an object from her belt and she collapses. The object was a power pack, and the Movellans are robots. They continue on, finding Romana in a test chamber with the Nova Device. The Doctor attempts to free her as the counter ticks down, but is found and stunned by the Movellans.

Davros calls for a spaceship to retrieve him, but it will not arrive for six hours. He then reviews the battle fleet’s logistics and status – the details were supervised by the Supreme Dalek, but Davros has none of it and effectively strips the supreme commander of his title – and discovers that the Daleks and Movellans are locked in war, robotic fleet engaged with robotic fleet in logical impasse.

The Doctor also deduces this and, using Rock-Paper-Scissors, demonstrates that a biological influence will alter the balance of power and sway the war. This is why the Daleks sought Davros. The Movellans suggest that the Doctor should become their war planner, but he refuses.

Tyssan leads a prisoner revolt, storming the ship and systematically deactivating the Movellans. Meanwhile, Davros dispatches the Daleks, armed with the Doctor’s explosives, to destroy the Movellan ship. With the ship under Tyssan’s control, the Doctor leaves to confront Davros, but is trapped by a single remaining Dalek who did not join the suicide squad.

The prisoners attempt to defend the ship, but are no match for the Daleks. Romana leaves the group to stop the last Movellan from using the Nova Device. The Doctor distracts the Dalek guard by covering its eyestalk with his hat and causing it to explode. He then triggers the explosives, destroys the Dalek squad, and captures Davros. In the custody of the former prisoners, Davros is placed in cryogenic suspension and sent to Earth for trial.

The Doctor and Romana sneak away and watch the Movellan ship depart, then dig out the TARDIS and prepare to leave. Over a discussion of the Doctor’s ability to win by making mistakes, including a false start dematerialization, the Time Lords leave Skaro for another adventure.

It’s good to see the Daleks and Davros again, and I appreciate a story like this that has a few twists and turns. Romana’s ignorance of the Daleks is a little odd – One would think that Time Lords would learn about a serious threat like them in the Academy – but was a great way to re-establish some power to an enemy that the Doctor has easily and frequently vanquished. It also helps solve one of the big issues that I had with Romana in the Sixteenth Series: This time she’s not just playing “Doctor Lite.”

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

I remember when Doctor Who did a season-long arc. I liked the Eighth Series a lot more.

Sure, the final scores between the two reflect this, but it goes deeper, much like how I like the Second Doctor more than the Third (even though I scored the latter higher).

The concept seemed solid enough: The Key to Time Arc is a fight between good and evil – literally, the White Guardian versus the Black Guardian – with the Time Lords doing the legwork to maintain the balance of time, order, and chaos. It seems like something that Doctor Who should excel at, especially in how the eternal battle of angels and demons relates to humanity.

But it didn’t.

As I mentioned in The Power of Kroll, one of the biggest failings in this arc is how they handled the fragments of this powerful artifact. Instead of treating them along the same lines as the Infinity Stones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the writers here treated them like museum pieces that would be hunted by Indiana Jones. Except that they even shortcut that as well because the fragments didn’t have any real power on their own.

Instead of making the fragments powerful enough to literally bend the story’s narrative – the tale of disparate criminals breaking out of prison becomes a quest to save the universe; a betrayed archaeologist decides to break up a cult, free slaves, and restore the village’s livelihood; a super-powered squid terrorizes a tribe of natives and their mining oppressors – five of the six pieces were effectively impotent and completely random.

The arc even had a chance to redeem itself in The Armageddon Factor by revisiting the ethical discussion from Genesis of the Daleks. The final Key Fragment was literally a human being, and in order to complete the mission and prevent the Black Guardian from enslaving the universe in eternal war, Princess Astra had to die. Is one human life worth completing the mission and saving the universe? That answer is no. What about when there is a completely viable alternative?

The Doctor had the ability to disperse the Key Fragments at the end to stop the Black Guardian from getting the completed Key. There was a perfect opportunity to pit Light and Dark against each other with the Time Lords protecting one human life in a discussion on how important it was. It was an opportunity to explore the human condition through metaphor, and it was missed by a long shot.

Sadly, the story execution was not the only failing in the Key to Time Arc.

I haven’t said a lot about Romana, and there is a really good reason for that. From the beginning, the role of the companion has been as a gateway to understand the Doctor. The Doctor has a cosmic understanding of time and space, and with that comes immense power. The companion balances the Doctor’s power (and his susceptibility to corruption by that power) by introducing an limited knowledge and an eagerness to learn more. We learned back in the Fourteenth Series that the Doctor cannot carry the responsibility (or the franchise) alone. He needs someone to temper the deus in the deus ex machina.

Unfortunately, Romana is written in this series as the Doctor Redux. Sure, she’s not as experienced, but she’s just as (or more) witty and capable, and shortly after her introduction, the pair is operating as equals instead of counterweights. It’s a case of double deus, and it removes our sympathetic window into understanding the Doctor and his adventures.

It’s certainly not Mary Tamm’s fault. She had so much potential in the role, but I feel that the screenplays prevented her from reaching it. There was also the opportunity to introduce the Doctor’s views on Time Lord society to a new recruit, maybe fixing the problems in the system that make the Doctor (and the audience) dislike his own people so much. Sadly, no. It’s unfortunate because there was some good chemistry between her and Tom Baker on screen. It’s doubly unfortunate because of her immediate departure from the role.

On a related note, I sincerely hope that Lalla Ward is better as the next companion. I’m willing to give her a shot, but I wasn’t impressed with her role as Princess Astra. Maybe it was the script? I’ll find out soon. I love the idea of a sympathetic Time Lord, but the character needs to be better.

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

The target for the sixth and final segment of the Key to Time is Atrios, the twin planet to Zeos, which are engaged with each other in a brutal nuclear war. Princess Astra, the leader of Atrios in name only, is appalled at the carnage and the conditions for her people. She is also disturbed by the actions of the Marshal, who holds all of the power because of the hostilities. The Marshal confesses to his aide-de-camp Shapp that they are actually losing the war and is searching for any way to win, and the Marshal leads the princess into a trap. To silence her, perhaps? Or is it something more?

The TARDIS arrives in parking orbit around Atrios, but the Time Lords determine that they are way off course. They take the TARDIS in manually, which provokes the Atrians to launch a nuclear missile to intercept. The TARDIS de-materializes moments before impact to confuse the Atrians, then arrives on the planet.

The Marshal is also communicating with an unseen entity. Are we finally coming to the Black Guardian?

Since the planet is engaged in nuclear war, the Time Lords decide to move quickly. They track the fragment to the room holding Princess Astra, but are soon ambushed by the Marshal. He leads them away as another bombardment buries the TARDIS in rubble. K9 takes the opportunity to hide.

The Marshal declares the Time Lords, along with Merak (the princess’s sort of secret lover), as spies against the government. The Doctor tricks the Marshal into summoning K9, who provides a distraction for Time Lords to escape. The return to the landing site only to discover that the TARDIS is buried, and unbeknownst to them, the princess has been transmatted away by a mysterious masked figure.

Merak follows the Time Lords, and together they breach the room where Astra was being kept. Due to the high radiation, the humanoids leave K9 to stand guard while they continue the investigation. The Marshal uses the opportunity to lure K9 into the recycling complex. He also sends guards to retrieve the trio and bring them back to the command center, intending to treat them as guests. The Marshal asks the Doctor to help Atrios win the war, and he suggests a shield to block Zeons from attacking. The Marshal demands a weapon instead, intent on destroying the enemy. The Doctor says that he’ll need K9 and the Marshal reveals the robotic dog’s fate. The Doctor rushes to the recycling complex and rescues K9 at the last second. In the confusion, the Marshal reveals a small device attached to his neck. Romana tells the Doctor of this device later on as they brainstorm a solution. The Doctor deduces that something is blocking Zeos from Atrios, and the Doctor proposes going to Zeos to investigate.

Princess Astra appears on a transmission from Zeos demanding an Atrian surrender, and the Marshal sends the Doctor to a transmat for transport. Romana and Merak sneak into the room behind the Marshal’s mirror and discover a stone skull and the Marshal’s plot to trap the Doctor. As they arrive with the information, the trap is sprung, and the Doctor is transmatted away with two masked men.

The entity controlling the Marshal ends the Zeon attacks on Atrios, leaving the Marshal open to any course he chooses. Meanwhile, the Doctor is brought before the entity, the Shadow, who reveals that he has the TARDIS. The Shadow demands that the Doctor open the TARDIS and retrieve the segments to the Key to Time. Meanwhile, Romana and Merak discover that the TARDIS is missing, and then decide to follow the Doctor. Merak tricks Romana into surrendering the Key Core before transmatting away.

The Shadow leaves the Doctor, confident that the Time Lord will eventually make a mistake that will lead to the other fragments. The Doctor begins to search for the final segment while the Shadow interrogates Princess Astra. The Shadow reveals Astra is on his ship while Merak is on Zeos. Romana and K9 follow to Zeos, as does the Marshal’s aide Shapp. Shapp finds the Doctor and is convinced to follow K9’s tracks to the rest of the group. K9 has been communicating with the Zeon commander, which is actually a supercomputer named Mentalis. The computer has been instructed to conceal all information about Princess Astra, but reveals that the war is over and obliteration of everything is the next step.

The Marshal launches a plan to destroy Zeos with a missile assault. The computer cannot counterattack since it believes that it has won. If the computer is destroyed, it will implement the Armageddon Factor and destroy both planets. The Time Lords set to work in reprogramming Mentalis, but this triggers the computer to start a self-destruct sequence. Meanwhile, Romana deduces that the Shadow is located on a third planet in the star system. With the self-destruct clock still ticking the Time Lords seek refuge in the TARDIS.

The Shadow returns to Astra and fits her with a control device. He forces her to project an image of herself to distract Merak, and Shapp is stunned by one of the Shadow’s henchmen and transmatted away. Merak ends up falling down a hole after chasing the apparition.

The Doctor and Romana attempt to construct the Key to Time, but without the remaining fragment the artifact is useless. The Doctor constructs an artificial piece to fill the gap which places the Marshall’s ship in a time loop and prevents him from attacking. Since the one segment is artificial, the time loop is steadily degrading.

The real Astra (under the Shadow’s control) rescues Marek. The pair run into K9 and the dog fights off the henchmen as the pair head to the TARDIS. The villains lure K9 into the transmat with a distress call and the pooch is beamed away to the Shadow’s ship where he is reprogrammed. Meanwhile, Astra reveals her allegiances to Marek and he is beamed away as she tries to fool the Doctor. She gains access to the TARDIS and accompanies the Time Lords to the Shadow’s location.

K9, now working for the Shadow, goes to greet the trio. Inside the TARDIS, Astra is directed by the Shadow to take Romana to him. The Doctor finds the distress signal that trapped K9 and follows it, plagued the entire trip by illusions of Romana, Astra, and himself. He eventually confronts the Shadow, who reveals that he is the agent of the Black Guardian, and is captured.

FINALLY! The Black Guardian arrives!

In his cell, the Doctor encounters another Time Lord named Drax (who refers to him as Theta Sigma – that can’t be his real name, can it?). Drax was forced under threat of death to build Mentalis. He has since been trying to tunnel out and find a way to his own TARDIS on Zeos. The Doctor determines if Drax is trustworthy as the Shadow tortures Romana for information. After gaining everything he can from her, the Shadow sends K9 after the Doctor. The Doctor tricks K9 into the cell with Drax where the threat is stopped. The Doctor makes his way out to the upper levels and is captured by a henchman and taken to the Shadow. There, the Doctor is forced to retrieve the Key to Time so the Shadow can add the Sixth Fragment and set the cosmos at war. When he reaches the TARDIS with his henchman escort, the Doctor is surprised by Drax’s arrival. Drax shoots him with a shrink ray, miniaturizing both of the Time Lords. Since the TARDIS doors are open and the time loop is crumbling as the artificial Key Fragment is burning up, they decide to create a distraction.

The Shadow leaves to retrieve the Key, and Romana discovers that Princess Astra is the Sixth Fragment. The Doctor and Drax fix K9 and hitch a ride to the wall outside the Shadow’s chambers. After Merak transmats back to the Shadow’s ship, he joins the group in the chamber where Astra is transformed into the fragment. As K9 blasts in and the Time Lords are restored to normal size, the Doctor retrieves the Key and takes Romana back to the TARDIS. They travel to the computer room where Drax – who rescued K9 – helps them disarm Mentalis. Free of the time loop, the Marshal fires on Zeos, but his missiles are deflected into the Shadow’s ship.

Drax leaves to find his next construction job and the Doctor is briefly enthralled by the power of the Key. As the Shadow dies, the Black Guardian disguises himself as the White Guardian and attempts to trick the Doctor into surrendering the Key. The Black Guardian callously disregards Princess Astra’s sacrifice, and the Doctor figures out who the Guardian truly is. The Doctor disperses the Key Fragments across the universe, thus reuniting the restored Princess Astra with Marek, at the same moment as the TARDIS dematerializes.

To prevent the Black Guardian from following and seeking revenge, the Doctor has installed a randomizer on the TARDIS. Not even the Doctor knows where they are going next.

The ending is iffy. If the White Guardian had successfully restored the balance between good and evil throughout time, then the show would theoretically be over since it relies on the Doctor battling evil. But the dispersal of the key feels like it invalidates the entire journey to assemble it. It’s a hollow victory capped by a last-minute convenience. It’s almost as if the writers had no idea how to put a lid on this whole season’s story.

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

The common thread throughout the serial was the weak story. There was very little meat on the bone, and it shows in how detailed my notes are. The story opens in a methane catalyzing refinery where we’re introduced to the crew and their servant, Mensch. The servant, who they treat like swamp scum until he dies, is a native of the planet.

The planet is really a moon orbiting Delta Magna. Taking a cue from The Empire Strikes Back, the moon is one big swamp. Instead of a single green Jedi, the moon’s inhabitants are a group of green natives called the “swampies.” For the record, that’s the last time I’ll mention that name because the narrative treats it in the ugliest manner for the duration.

The commander is returning from somewhere, and the tracking officer notes that a spacecraft followed in the commander’s shuttle. They presume that it must be Rohm-Dutt, a gun-runner who is supplying the natives with weapons in the name of The Sons of Earth. Who are they? A missed opportunity for the plot.

The refinery workers take up arms in pursuit of the smuggler. Coincidentally, the TARDIS arrives at that same time, and as the Doctor and Romana search for the next Key Fragment, Romana is abducted by the natives and the Doctor is ambushed by the humans. K9 gets to stay in the TARDIS since he cannot navigate the swamp. Lucky dog.

Rohm-Dutt questions Romana about her presence and intentions, and the Doctor gets a similar treatment from the workers. After he convinces them that he’s not a threat, the refinery personnel decide to keep the Doctor at their facility. He accompanies them to watch an orbit shot, the purpose of which is, well, not really explained.

Romana, on the other hand, gets to meet the local god since the natives decide to sacrifice her to the mighty Kroll. She’s tied to a stake, subjected to the local interpretation of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and gets scared by a native in a squid suit. With the Doctor’s quip that “it probably looked more convincing from the front,” it’s apparent that this serial is mocking itself.

After freeing Romana, the Doctor reveals that he has (somehow) recovered the Key Core. They decide to investigate further for reasons and discover a text that references Kroll, a creature that consumed a previous High Priest, and has made three appearances. It’s due for a fourth, which happens in short order. The refinery workers note that something has caused the moon’s surface to move up briefly and then settle again. They find that the Doctor has left the complex, decide that he’s a sympathizer who is going to warn the natives of a pending human assault on them, and set out in pursuit to kill him. Everything converges as the humans hunt the Time Lords, the natives attack the humans, their weapons explode on use, Kroll eats Mensch, and the natives retreat to settle the score with Rohm-Dutt and seek a blood sacrifice to appease the god.

The natives capture the Time Lords, bundling them with Rohm-Dutt as a massive sacrifice under one of the “seven holy rituals.” The Doctor finds it lucky that they get to participate in the seventh, which is the swamp equivalent of torture by the racks. The second episode ends as Kroll seeks out the refinery, which apparently has been harvesting methane produced by the creature when it hibernates and has been drilling right into it, and eats one of the crewmen after breaking through a pipe.

The Doctor questions the native High Priest about Kroll, trying to hypnotize him so the man will free them, but all he gets is some backstory. Rohm-Dutt also admits that the refinery foreman paid him handsomely to sell the faulty weapons to the natives and discredit The Sons of Earth. See above, re: missed opportunity.

Luckily, the captives break free courtesy of two conveniences: The Doctor shatters a window with his singing and the ensuing storm loosens their bonds. Seven really is his lucky number. They make their way across the swamps and encounter the Kroll once again. It eats Rohm-Dutt and a native, leading the Doctor to deduce that it hunts by vibration.

Those two paragraphs were Episode Three. Yes, really.

The refinery commander, who is going insane in his need to eliminate his opposition, decides to aim the next orbital shot (whatever that is) at the Kroll, but his crew afraid that it will ignite the thin atmosphere and kill all of the natives. The Doctor stops the launch and the Kroll escapes, but the Time Lords do not as the commander catches up to them.

The natives invade the refinery, ending the commander’s threat at the surprise end of a spear. Kroll resumes its assault on the refinery, but the Doctor and the remaining refinery worker distract it by engaging all of the platform’s equipment and alarms. The High Priest offers a prayer to the tentacle emerging from the broken pipe. He ends up becoming a sacrament.

The Doctor takes the Key Core topside, testing his theory that the source of the Kroll’s power is the Fragment. After getting a hug from the squid, he transforms it into the Fifth Segment. The story ends with an aborted bang as the Doctor short circuits the computer to prevent the next orbit shot, which would have been into a plugged firing tube.

The Doctor and Romana make their way back to the TARDIS and take off, thankfully ending this adventure.

Why thankfully?

This one is stretched thin across the board. The refinery crew is acted poorly, as are the natives, and they have the extra baggage of the Savage Indian trope. The special effects are bad, and so is the script, especially when thin atmosphere and weak gravity are explicitly called out but neither is readily apparent in the acting. Even the regulars are poorly written with jokes that fail so hard at landing that they reach escape velocity without a push.

This could have easily been turned serious as another Doctor Who allegory on colonialism, capitalism, racism, slavery, and religion. It could have been as deep as The Mutants. Instead, we get a self-effacing farce that doesn’t even take advantage of the groundwork to the Key to Time arc. We’ve had one or two hints, but the warning to beware the Black Guardian hasn’t had any payoff at all.

The tremendous positive here is how the Key Fragment was handled. In the previous four stories, the fragments have all been random objects like a lump of jethrik ore, the remnants of a compressed planet, the Great Seal of Diplos, and a piece of a statue. The rub is that the Key was sold to us as a powerful and legendary artifact that maintains the equilibrium of time. This story treated the Key Fragment like one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Infinity Stones, making it so powerful that it warped the narrative around it. The Time Lords couldn’t just theoretically arrive, identify and snag the treasure, and then leave. Instead, they had no choice but to literally fight the monster to solve the story’s conflict and earn the reward. In this story, they had to work for it.

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.